Rejecting calls from across the financial-services industry, the U.S.
Supreme Court let stand a ruling that gives borrowers more power to
enforce state limits on interest rates.
The justices turned away a
company’s effort to avoid a class-action lawsuit over its efforts to
collect credit-card debt from New York consumers.

The rebuff
leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that lenders say is already
having far-reaching effects by undercutting the burgeoning internet
lending business and raising questions about debt-backed securities that
contain high-interest loans.

The
practical effects "are difficult to overstate," the debt collector,
Encore Capital Group Inc.’s Midland unit, argued in the appeal.

The
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said borrowers in some
circumstances can invoke their state’s usury laws, as the interest-rate
caps are known, even if the loan originates elsewhere.

The U.S. Supreme Court backed the broad application of a federal law
barring firearm possession by people convicted of misdemeanor domestic
violence, ruling it could be used against two men convicted under a
Maine law.

The justices voted 6-2 in the case, which drew attention in February
when Justice Clarence Thomas asked questions during arguments for the
first time in a decade. Thomas dissented from the ruling.